Learning to Swallow

I haven't been in the mood to type blog posts lately.  It has been more fun to sleep and read.  And I have been trying to get office work done, a little every day. I just can't get enthused about writing just now, but I do want to update one in a while, but it may not be very often.  

 It's been pretty well accepted that I would have to learn to swallow all over again, and it seemed like now was the time since I was having mucus that I needed to swallow and that wasn't happening either. So, I went to a speech therapist Friday and a dear lady named Edna has me swallow water which I coughed up and she tried thickened liquid which I promptly threw up.  I gag so easily She then gave me various exercises to do which include howling like a coyote. saying "ah" several times. Those two exercises are done while squeezing my hands together.  The pressure of the hands somehow gives more "oomph" to the inside, too. I have to say 10 words that start with "g" or "k", blow a party favor, swallow three times with my tongue between my teeth, and say, "Please go get me a good magazine". These are for strengthening the tongue and throat muscles.  Believe it or not the howling one is the easiest, even though it is pretty funny to be howling around.  

Then on Monday I had a modified Barium swallow where I swallowed various thickness of liquids and watch the x-ray as it goes down.  Jim watched too, and they set it up so I could see it and evaluate it.  The water wants to get into the windpipe but comes back up so quickly to be swallowed so there are no worries there and the applesauce went down nicely, too.  It hurts a bit, so does the water, but not as bad.  In fact, it might be a bit early for all this swallowing since my throat is still sore, but I will try to keep plugging on.  I'm starting with a little applesauce and water every day. 

This afternoon I had therapy in the new outpatient physical therapy room at the hospital. The new area is just corridors and rooms and it is hard to find where things are.  I didn't remember where it was, and I'm not sure I could find it again, but mom says she can.  She just gave me some more things to say, some swabs to put in the freezer to stimulate my tongue.  I hope I'm not jumping the gun too much, since my throat still hurts.  I wish it would get healed up.   So Friday, I have an appointment with the radiation dr. and another session with the therapist.  So, things are just going to be marching on for awhile.  Next week, I go to Omaha on Tues.  They want to get an MRI.

It takes a lot longer to get all healed up than a body thinks.